March 15, 2000
BGCT offers support, guidance for church starting
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___There was a day when Baptists went about church starting much like McDonald's or Burger King opens franchises.
___Land was bought. A building--often a uniform floor plan designed by architects in Nashville, Tenn.--was erected. Leadership was trained and brought in from a nearby church, but great care was taken to ensure the new church was not built too close to anyexisting Baptist church.
Hundreds of new churches needed
___Call this model "If you build it, they will come."
___Those days largely are gone.
___Although the traditional model of an existing church sending out a corps of its own members to launch a new pre-fab congregation still happens, it no longer is the norm in Baptist life, according to experts in the field.
___The ways churches are started today are as numerous as the number of churches that are started, said Fred Ater, coordinator of the Church Starting Institute with the Baptist General Convention of Texas Church Starting Center. "Instead of cloning an existing church, we're asking: "How can we start churches that are different?" he explained.
___The reason for this change in attitude is a growing awareness that it takes different types of churches to reach different types of people. And what works in one community may not work in another.
___Perhaps an extreme example of this reality is the commitment of Northwood Church in Keller to reach the diverse people groups in its community. Since the mother church was begun 15 years ago, it has intentionally started six other churches around its perimeter to reach different groups of people.
___"There are many different kinds of people," said Pastor Bob Roberts. "No one church is going to reach all those people."
___Call this model "If you build up people, they will come."
___It's messages such as this that the BGCT Church Starting Center attempts to spread across the state. The BGCT is not so much in the business of starting churches itself as it is of facilitating and empowering local churches and associations as they start churches, said E.B. Brooks, director of the Church Starting Center.
___"We see one of our major roles as motivational--publicizing the need, publicizing the involvement of churches in starting churches," he explained. "Another thing is to provide as much as possible the most current information about how churches get started and how they can be effective in evangelizing."
___The BGCT also provides financial assistance "to jump-start new congregations," Brooks said, and forms partnerships with sponsoring churches and associations.
___The BGCT does not employ or send out church starters, Brooks explained. "The local sponsor church and the association and the new congregation itself decide who the church planter will be. We focus on helping that church planter be the best that person can possibly be."
___Along with this change in attitude has come a change in funding, Brooks said. In the past, the state convention operated with one basic model of funding new churches. But today, "we have a variety of funding methodologies that more nearly fit the need of the new congregation."
___Organizationally, the BGCT has moved from an old-style missions-agency model to create the Church Starting Center as a component within the BGCT staff. Though headquartered at the Baptist Building in Dallas, the majority of the Church Starting Center's staff live and work outside Dallas.
___Eight church starting consultants are spread across the state to provide consultation, strategic planning assistance, training and other resources.
___The newest addition to the Church Starting Center is the Church Starting Institute, headed by Ater, a former foreign missionary. The institute's role is to promote assessment for potential church starters, training for church starters and orientation for sponsoring churches and their leaders.
___In addition to Brooks and Ater in the Dallas office, church starting consultants with the BGCT include John Silva, West Texas; Bob Craig, Central Texas; Chuck Dooley, Gulf Coast; Gerald Edwards, East Texas; David Guel, South Texas; Ron Nolen, North Central Texas; Patty Lane, intercultural; and Roy Cotton, Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
___For more information on the Church Starting Center, call (888) 244-9400.
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